L&S Leadership

Seeing the Other Side

January 23, 2026

United we stand. United, we are not.

As tensions have flared over events ranging from the 2020 murder of George Floyd to the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk, our nation’s divisions seem to grow more and more stark. Against that backdrop, Berkeley’s new course “Openness to Opposing Views” aims to foster dialogue across ideological divides.

The asynchronous, self-paced course launched in the summer with just 50 enrollees. Since then, it has grown to roughly 700 students, with thousands more Cal faculty, staff, and alumni taking advantage of the free, non-...

L&S Advisory Board welcomes four new members

October 16, 2025

The College of Letters & Science Advisory Board is pleased to welcome four new members in Fall 2025. The L&S Advisory Board is a volunteer group of leaders in leaders in industry, government, and academia who are deeply committed to the mission of the College to provide a world-class liberal arts undergraduate education at UC Berkeley and to be a global leader in basic research and training within each of its represented disciplines.

Get to know new members Janet Dorling, Ned Purdom, Po Chi Wu, and Laura Young by reading their responses to the introduction Q&A below.

Learning to listen: Expanded UC Berkeley course teaches how to better engage with opposing views

August 21, 2025

Now available to all students, faculty, staff and alumni, the class features lectures and discussions with top UC Berkeley scholars and offers suggestions on navigating especially challenging conversations during polarized times.

Amir Rafiei has long known that some topics can be divisive. But he hadn’t realized how his own actions may have caused divides in his seemingly neutral hobby of filmmaking.

Sometimes he’d feel “locked in” with his own thoughts and ideas. He’d stop listening to what his collaborators were saying about shot techniques or narrative structures...

New Townsend Center gift honors visionary founder

November 7, 2024

The Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities will boost its fellowship and Art of Writing programs thanks to a generous gift from Matt and Margaret Jacobson. The couple pledged $750,000 to create the Paul Alpers Memorial Fund, honoring the founding director of UC Berkeley’s renowned nexus of humanities research and events.

“We feel so loved,” said Stephen Best, the center’s current faculty director, about the Jacobsons’ support. “I don't have a better way of expressing how deeply appreciative we are to have two people who get what we do and want to see us...

World Humanities Report, directed by UC Berkeley's Sara Guyer, warns of extinction risk to human knowledge

October 14, 2024

What role do the humanities play in a world challenged by climate change, rising authoritarianism, censorship, racism, wars and collapsed economies?

The humanities and their forms of historical, visual and cultural literacy are critical to understanding and addressing the human experience and the planet’s survival, says Sara Guyer, dean of the Division of Arts and Humanities in UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science.

She should know: Guyer is director of the prestigious World Humanities Report, a major...

Richard Harland named Dean of Biological Sciences Division

September 18, 2024

Chancellor Rich Lyons and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Ben Hermalin announced today that Interim Dean Richard Harland has been appointed as dean of the Division of Biological Sciences:

Dear Campus Community,

We are pleased to announce that Richard Harland has been selected to serve as dean of the College of Letters & Science Division of Biological Sciences at UC Berkeley. Professor Harland has been serving the university as interim dean since July 2024, senior associate dean since 2016, and professor of molecular and cellular biology...

The biological sciences have a new leader in Richard Harland. Read his first interview as dean.

September 19, 2024
Four decades after arriving at UC Berkeley as a new faculty member, Richard Harland remains fascinated by embryos, evolution, and early developmental biology. In his first public interview as dean, Harland explained why he came to Berkeley, what it takes to enable top-tier research, how the division serves the state, and what pulled him away from his beloved lab to take on a leadership role.

Four new faculty hires are a quantum leap for experimental physics

August 1, 2024

Headshots of four professors against a blue and yellow graphic background

Already known as a leader in quantum science and a testbed for quantum computing, the University of California, Berkeley, is expanding its footprint with the hiring of four early-career experimental physicists who use quantum systems to explore new frontiers in physics.

The new assistant professors of physics will augment a wide range of quantum research...

Richard Harland named interim dean for the Division of Biological Sciences

June 27, 2024

The following message was shared with the UC Berkeley community on June 27, 2024.

Dear Colleagues,

The search for the next dean of the Division of Biological Sciences is ongoing; we remain optimistic that we will be able to share news regarding the dean search in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we are grateful to Senior Associate Dean Richard M. Harland, who has graciously agreed to step into the dean role on an interim basis effective July 1, 2024.

Senior Associate Dean Harland has an...